Sir, You Are Being Hunted

The gentlemen robots that hunt you in Sir, You Are Being Hunted are a remorseless bunch. They hunt in packs, scouring the bleak alternate vision of the British countryside, with glowing red eyes scanning the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of their quarry. You. They carry antiquated firearms, hunt with mechanical dogs and floating spotlights to aid them, and they never give up.

Sir is a stealth game with a procedurally generated twist. Each new game consists of five islands, a central isle surrounded by four, one north, one south, and so on. In the middle of the central island is a device, and scattered around you on the islands are the pieces needed to get it working. Fix the device, make your escape. Simple stuff.

The islands themselves are generated anew at the beginning of each run, so there's scope for re-playability here (plus there's different loadouts offering different items at the start). The fragments that you need to find are dotted across each of the islands, and while their positioning remains constant, the patrolling robo-gentry and the other items that are hidden around the world shift location and thus a feeling of uncertainty constantly lingers in the air.

The five islands are generated with specific types of landscape - fenland, castles, industrialised areas, that sort of thing - but the bleak tones and dull colour palette endures across the archipelago. The muddy brown aesthetic captures the essence of a rural Britain of yesteryear (but still of recent living memory). The audio accompaniment and soundtrack further enhances the mood, and at times it felt like we were trapped inside a Pink Floyd concept album. The picture painted by Big Robot is purposeful and well achieved, though it may be too murky for some.

Despite the sombre mood, Sir manages to have a finely tuned sense of humour. From the mumbling quips of the gentlemen robots, to the signage of the hamlets you'll be exploring; it's very deliberately done and manages to raise more than a few smiles. Similarly, the items that you'll loot along the way are also funny and quirky. This is one game that keeps its metallic tongue firmly in its metallic cheek.

The items you discover are a key component of the game. You'll rummage through barrels and scavenge from the fallen robots you meet on the way, as well as looting the buildings that you come across on your journey (hitting ‘F' at the door of a building shows you what items are held within, but structures are non-enterable, which felt like a missed opportunity to layer in additional character and comedic observation). There's various consumables to boost health and vitality (which we'll get to in a moment), weapons and ammo, traps and tools needed to progress, and plenty of junk. There's a lot of inventory management, as you only have a certain amount of squares available to fill with items (a la Resident Evil).

When it comes to health and survival, Sir has a very particular way of doing business. You eat consumables (some of which - cuts of meat for example - must be prepared on an open fire) to boost your vitality, which in turn causes your health to crawl upwards to max level (100). If you get caught by bullets or snagged in traps, you can start to bleed out, and the only remedy for that is bandages fashioned from rags discovered in the environment. It's a unique system, but we warmed to it over time, although bleeding out is a very frustrating way to die, especially when there's no saving your game other than when travelling between islands via the boats moored on the coast (you can also head back to the boat and save and then travel back out into the island - you can also save when you journey back to the standing stones in the centre island to drop off any fragments you're carrying).

The aforementioned lack of mid-game saves, and the ramping challenge that increases as more and more fragments are returned to the middle island, means that there's a fair bit of retreading well-worn steps. The randomised patrols and loot go someway to alleviating this as an issue, but it can get frustrating later on in the game, when there's larger numbers of robots hunting you down and the pace drops off accordingly - more enemies requires more caution.

As you progress you have to start using your inventory more creatively, but even using the tools at your disposal, the AI can be frustratingly alert to your intentions, even when you think you're being cunning and elusive. The basic stealth moves include throwing empty bottles and shifting patrols away from fragments (signposted by a plume of grey smoke), but there's more ingenious solutions if you seek them out, such as using alarm clocks as diversions, or setting traps and funnelling your pursuers towards them.

The more fragments you collect, the more dangerous your opponents become, with the standard robotic-gent soon joined in the hunt by horseback riders, gangly-legged giants, blunderbuss carrying midget-bots, sniffer robo-dogs, and menacing scarecrows planted in the middle of fields who alert nearby patrols of your whereabouts. Size generally doesn't make too much difference when it comes to tactics; hiding from and crawling by nearby patrols is by far the most sensible approach. If you're discovered, it's very easy to get killed, so you'll hardly ever pick a non-essential fight, preferring instead to take on your enemies on your own terms and only when required. That's not always possible though, and as it is with the best stealth games, being discovered leads to panic-stricken improvisation, which, when it works, leads to glorious satisfaction.

For the most part Sir, You Are Being Hunted succeeds in its aims. There's systems that blend together to offer a distinctive stealth experience, and the the visual ("tweedpunk") and audio stylings are evocative and set a very particular tone. There's humour in there, which won't resonate with everyone, but gives the overall experience an absurd edge that we personally enjoyed. But all of these positives aren't enough to gloss over the repetitious tracking back and forth as you piece together your exit strategy from the strange robo-filled archipelago.

Our enjoyment of the mood and setting, plus an existing appreciation of stealth games, helped us push through some of the harder moments, although we're sure that there's people out there who won't connect with the source material in the same way, and for those, Sir, You Are Being Hunted's shortcoming will likely be enough of a put off, preventing some from sticking around for the duration. For those that can overcome the grind, there's some heart-pounding stealth moments waiting to be experienced.